READ AND BE MERRY

Leading authors from Ben Elton to Lisa Jewell and David Baldacci share their favourite books of 2025 with MATT NIXSON

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Kate Atkinson, whose latest Jackson Brodie book is Death At The Sign Of The Rook (Transworld), says: "My perfect holiday read was Mick Herron's latest Slow Horses novel, Clown Town (John Murray). Herron's writing never lets you down and this is no exception. Drayton And Mackenzie by Alexander Starritt (Swift Press) is a busy, rumbunctious, moving tale about a relationship between two very different men that takes in ambition and love, success and failure, friendship and rivalry, not to mention the 2008 financial crisis. A deeply satisfying read. The title of Peter Brannen's The Story Of CO2 Is the Story of Everything (Penguin) says it all. Terrifying in the end it is heading to, but brilliant and exciting in describing the many previous evolutions that the Earth has gone through - scorpions as big as cats!"

Writer and comic Ben Elton, whose brilliant memoir, What Have I Done? (Macmillan) came out in October, says: "I love history books, particularly when they intersect with popular culture. Two great new books I have on the go are Dark Renaissance (Vintage), Stephen Greenblatt's riveting and evocative biography of Elizabethan playwright and spy Christopher Marlowe. Also 1929 (Allen Lane), Andrew Sorkin's account of the Wall Street crash, which has many lessons for today. I don't read a lot of fiction but have just become a late convert to audio books and have started listening to them while on my cross trainer. I am sweating away to John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga (Penguin) and loving it - marvellous soap opera and great history combined!"